


Built for Every Kind of Weather

by Hecate



Category: Fast and the Furious Series, The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-21
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-10-23 17:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: He has a crush on Hobbs. Eric is neither dumb nor green enough not to admit this to himself, not foolish enough to ignore how easy it is to look at Hobbs and towanthim.





	Built for Every Kind of Weather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wallflowering](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wallflowering/gifts).



His mother was already sick when she chose his name, she was already dying, and his father used to tell Eric about the hours she spent going through names, looking for the perfect fit. Maybe she hoped for greatness when she called him Eric, maybe she hoped that he would be strong.

These days, no one ever uses his name; there are only nicknames instead, some of them stupid, some of them less so. Hobbs is the only exception.

It doesn't mean shit.

*~*

The team split for a while after they got Dom back and Hobbs took a break. Vacations and parties and some crazy _Oceans 11_ -credit scene bullshit. Eric just went back to Mr. Nobody and his old job.

He went back to his boss's quiet amusement and encouragement, Nobody always looking at him as if Eric could be more. Should have been more during the mission with Hobbs's team.

Eric almost asked him. Decided against it. 

He watched his boss and tried to learn. Thought that he got better, little by little. Tried not to think of the team, of Hobbs and the way he dared Eric to think differently, work differently. Tried to forget the way he felt when Hobbs smiled at him after Eric managed not to fuck things up.

Not that it mattered. Because Cypher reappeared, and Mr. Nobody called the team together, and Eric was thrown back to the wolves.

*~*

The team walks into the Toyshop, all swagger and one-liners and the smell of cars. And for a moment, all Eric sees is Hobbs.

His stomach does a little nosedive then and a pretty sharp barrel roll, and Eric has to look away. Swallows, takes a breath before getting up and walking towards the team to welcome them back.

Even manages to look straight at Hobbs.

Later, after he's summed up the intel for them and saved another car from Roman's greedy hands; later, when he's on his own and it's quieter, he's a little bit proud of that.

It doesn't mean much. He's been proud of assembling his Ikea cupboard, too.

*~*

Eric still isn't one of them, is an outsider in a band of brothers, and it's lonely in a way he never experienced before. It's dangerous, too, this lack of a rhythm, the team and its ideas and skills still an unknown quantity to him.

He covers it up with a blank face, with an annoyed raise of his brow at Roman's comments and antics, one more stupid than the other, and with protocols and rules. He's a professional, after all.

Sometimes, they call him “Rules” again, and the mockery turned into a nickname still packs a punch. Sometimes, it's “Little Nobody” and that one might be better, might be worse. Still, Eric lets it happen. Arguing wouldn't help anyway.

He's pretty sure that to them, he still is a joke.

*~*

He has a crush on Hobbs. Eric is neither dumb nor green enough not to admit this to himself, not foolish enough to ignore how easy it is to look at Hobbs and to _want_ him.

At least Mr. Nobody is amused by it. Somebody should be.

*~*

"Not too bad," Hobbs says, and his hand is large and warm on Eric's shoulder.

Eric almost arches into it. Instead, he forces himself to look at the screen, at his collected information. Smiles and says, "Thanks," and hates the heat that runs across his face and down his neck. Loves the praise and hates himself for that, too.

He frowns when he sees Roman behind Hobbs, sees him making faces and flailing around. Waits for Hobbs to leave before he raises his eyebrows at him.

“What?”

“It's you!” Roman singsongs, twirling with wide-spread arms. “A happy little puppy dog that got a tiny little treat from papa!”

Eric blinks, stares at Roman for a moment before he raises a middle finger in reply. Returns to his work and ignores Roman's laughter. 

He can do better than “pretty good.”.

At night, he thinks of Hobbs's hand on his skin and he thinks of his words, and his hand is shaking when he reaches out and wraps it around his cock.

*~*

Ten days into the mission and Eric almost gets the drop on Cypher.

But instead of bringing her in, he ends up with a few bruised ribs and bruised pride, leaning against Hobbs as he limps past his totalled car and to Hobbs' monster on four tires. It's oddly ... home-y inside of it. Safe.

It might just be Hobbs.

“You did good there,” Hobbs says.

Eric shrugs. “She got away.”

“Yeah,” Hobbs says.

“I should have waited for back-up,” Eric goes on, and he wishes he wouldn't sound so bitter, wishes he wasn't so easy to read.

Hobbs sighs, reaches out and pats Eric's shoulder. “Yeah.”

For a few seconds, Hobbs's hand stays where it is. Then, he starts the car and peels away from the side of the road, and Eric feels as if he just missed something big.

*~*

It hurts to move for a while, Eric's ribs burning whenever he lies down or gets up. It hurts when he _breathes_.

Eric hates it.

He can't focus on his work, and he can't train, and he can't help the team catch Cypher. Instead, he watches Ramsey compile the intel he usually works with and listens to Roman and Tej as they butter her up and praise her work.

He listens as Hobbs praises her.

And he feels so very useless.

*~*

The Toyshop looks like a shitty factory building from the outside, the grey walls hiding away the tech and the cars and all that gleaming metal. But it's easy enough to get to the roof if you know how to do it. The view from there might not be beautiful and the stars too drowned out by the city lights to matter, but it's still a roof in the city, and the night surrounds Eric whenever he climbs it.

Sometimes, Hobbs follows him, puts down a few beer bottles between them and sits down next to Eric. They don't really talk, the sounds of New York spreading out all around them, familiar and strange at the same time. It's easy to be silent with Hobbs.

It's harder not to touch him.

*~*

Cypher kidnaps Hobbs and Eric doesn't understand it, can't understand it, because it was Dom who destroyed her plans, it was always Dom, not Hobbs, and now Hobbs is gone, and Eric...

“Who kidnaps a sack of meat with a little bit of brain on top?” Shaw asks.

Eric punches him.

Roman laughs.

Chaos erupts.

“You're a useless little man,” Shaw tells him a few hours later, his upper lip split, his voice tinged with alcohol. “And your boyband separated because your voice made the milk turn sour.”

Eric presses a pack of frozen peas against his new black eye and decides not to answer.

Hobbs is still gone.

And Eric wants him back.

*~*

Mr. Nobody joins them, and with him, the resources of the agency arrive. Agents in suits and laptops and flat-screens and weapons, and the Toyshop gets crowded in a way it never was before. Eric can hardly stand it.

But they need them.

So he organizes space for the new agents, and he puts himself between the agents and the team because they are too much like he used to be and the team has no patience for it. He gets the team car parts when one of them asks, and he gets Ramsey access to networks and data she shouldn't even know exist. He reroutes money and he covers their tracks so Cypher can't find them as she found them before.

He doesn't react when Roman calls him Moneypenny.

Still, Cypher remains a ghost.

Eric isn't even surprised. She is the bogeyman, after all, the hacker to hack them all, and maybe it needs more than this splintered team and a bunch of strangers to find her.

*~*

In the end, they don't save Hobbs.

Hobbs saves himself.

*~*

It's raining, a fine drizzle that paints the world in darker colors and turns the dust road into mud. In the south, the clouds are tearing open, shades of blue peeking through.

Eric is in an ambulance with Hobbs.

He's in an ambulance with Hobbs, and Cypher is dead because Shaw shot her, and Dom is hurt, and Letty is angry, and Roman was freaking out when Eric left with Hobbs and the ambulance, and Eric has no idea what is going on with the team, and...

Hobbs reaches out. Touches Eric's shoulder briefly before his hand falls away, grazing his chest as it goes down. His touch is fleeting, the briefest moment of peace, of respite, but it is solid, too, and real.

Hobbs is back, he's safe, and Eric hangs on.

*~*

“So you punched Deckard Shaw,” Hobbs says, and he sounds so freaking amused.

Eric can't help but focus on the bandage that covers his side. Can't stop himself from reaching out, his fingertips skimming over it, the white fabric rough under his skin.

“I did,” he says, and he forces a smirk to his face. “I always wanted to.”

Hobbs laughs.

His hand is warm against Eric's wrist.

“What else do you want?” he asks, and his voice is deep, sure, and his words don't sound like a question at all.

*~*

“Eric,” Hobbs whispers, his fingers wrapped around Eric's cock, his mouth hot and wet against his throat. “Eric.”

And Eric comes.


End file.
